St. Pat's parade pullout is puzzling

With all due respect to the 1930s musical, not everyone loves a parade. So cue the band and try keeping up with the ongoing clamor over Southie's St. Patrick's Day fete:

The Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Harvard, renowned for its propensity to pull out of parades at the last minute, announced it was pulling out of the parade at the last minute due to the presence of — kids, look away — a group that protects the legal rights of gay citizens.

But members of that group, MassEquality, Monday rejected an invite to march because they're not allowed to do so openly. In other words, apparently, no flannel shirts for the girls, no fabulous fitted T's for the boys. This is the parade version of the military's old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy — just shut up and march.

Meanwhile, in a nice touch of one-upmanship, the alternative, gay-friendly St. Patrick Peace Parade will be led by Carlos Arredondo, beloved hero of the Boston Marathon bombing, so good luck trying to give him a hard time.

"There is a lot of controversy surrounding these parades," Arredondo noted to the Boston media. "We should all come together, combine the two parades into one big parade and allow everyone, straight, gay, peace, old and young to all participate together celebrating Saint Patrick."

Arredondo has clearly lost his mind, because the purpose of a parade is not to celebrate. It's to grandstand, exclude, stand your ground, flaunt your intolerance and protect the famously delicate sensibilities of South Bostonians, who would apparently pass out in their beer mugs should they lay eyes on a marching homosexual.

Besides the obvious irony that nothing is gayer than a parade, this controversy once again casts a cloud over one of the nation's biggest St. Pat's Day celebrations and makes it challenging for onlookers to keep up without a score card. Will Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who has refused to march in the parade if the LGBT groups are not allowed, continue to boycott? Because of the involvement of gay men at the alternative parade, how much prettier will the floats be? And what about the poor kids at Immaculate Heart of Mary — what happens when they grow up, meet gay co-workers and attempt to boycott their jobs?

But I'm starting to feel that IHM formed a marching band for the primary purpose of staging huffy, public boycotts. Last year, the band pulled out of Worcester's St. Patrick's Day Parade at the last minute after the school learned that its parade sponsor, who donated $1,000 to pay the band's costs, was supportive of abortion rights. The school also had a problem a few years ago because its parade sponsor was the Odd Fellows Home in Worcester, which is supported by the Masons, apparently also persona non grata.

Monday, I asked Brother Dalton if he was concerned that his small school was earning a reputation as a hotbed of intolerance.

"Bigotry is a word people throw out at you," he said. "But it doesn't apply. The Catholic church has never tolerated public sin."

I let that one pass. Instead, I asked what he thought about Pope Francis' famous admission — "Who am I to judge?"

"That's been taken out of context," Brother Dalton maintained. "He could never say that homosexuality is good. It's intrinsically disordered." As for the parade? "We don't want anything to do with it."